So the 9W TDP Ontario products will have Bobcat running at only 1-1.2Ghz? Lol, so much for all the AMD forum hype that Bobcat would "own" Atom.

I think another problem with the 18W Zacate products is that they will compete with the low-end Celeron and Pentium chips. Intel may update their lineup and replace the Celerons/Pentiums with low end i3 models.

As expected, Bobcat will not even come close to 2Ghz clock rates.

Based on the data here in this article, Bobcat may not be the home run some people are expecting it to be. Reply

There is so much fail in your statement. You think because ontario has a slower processor speed then atom (1Ghz to 1.6Ghz) That the atom processor is more powerfulI highly doubt Atom will have more CPU processing power than ontario. But even if atom is still more powerful in CPU compute, its crippled IGP brings it to its knees on any sort of multimedia. Ontario with its fusion APU will feel like it blows atoms out of the water as it seamlessly handles all the media you throw at it. This is huge for consumer satisfaction. Much more important than how fast it can compute super Pi.Reply

Atom is a dog, both on the CPU and GPU side. Ever use an Atom based system? You need the long battery life, because it takes you forever to do anything. And forget about anything other than very basic graphics on the Atom.

Atom based systems have a very high return rate because of this. Reply

Except you're forgetting future Atom platforms will be system-on-a-chip designs. All future Atoms will be far more integrated than Ontario or Zacate platforms, because Ontario and Zacate will not be system-on-a-chip designs.

The 9W Bobcats will compete with Atom, but the 18W products will compete with Celerons, Pentiums, and low-end i3s.

All Intel has to do is put a good GPU into future Atom SoC designs and whatever advantage Bobcat may have is negated. On that note, let's wait and see how the GPU is on future Atom platforms. Reply

Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU will perform at roughly Geforce 310M performance levels, which is "good enough" for most average people. I don't think it would be very hard for Intel to integrate that GPU somehow with Atom in an SoC design. Reply

Just to point out here that AMD can easily integrate bobcat cores in to SoCs. They are being manufactured by TSMC and will shortly get even smaller and more efficient with a process shrink. AMD specifically negotiated the right to outsource manufacture and to sub-licence x86 technology in their recent settlement with Intel. That suggests to me that they do in fact intend to manufacture or licence out an x86 SoC design.Reply

Because they have similar power consumption. The intel ultra low power or whatever they call it now i3s reach such low power consumption levels.but it requires intel to massively cut down clockspeed, and also to compete with a large expensive chip. The point of the atom is that its so damn small, this makes it really really cheap for intel to manufacture, thus increasing their margins. Could intel bring us an i3 with an extremely low clockspeed and power? yes...will intel do that? probably not.Reply

Don't forget the chip is manufactured on 40nm. I believe ontario platform released will be ok for the current market. The GF 28nm node for the next models will be the thing that will make ontario succeed or fail.Reply

You forget the fundamentally difference between Atom and Bobcat:Bobcat is a OoO CPU, Atom is a InOrder CPU.

Therefore Bobcat will have a much higher performance per clock. If 500 Mhz clock advantage is enough for Atom to beat Bobcat has to be seen.

You might compare that to the i5-760 vs. Phenom2 955/965 situation. Even though the Phenoms run at higher clocks, they are not faster as the lower clocked i5. That's because the i5 has a higher IPC, too. In that case not because of OoO <> InO, but that doesn't matter for the comparison.Reply

why? Intel hates atom. It kills their higher margin CPUs. They want that for phones and tablets, not full blown PCs.

If anything, AMD is the only reason Atom will improve. Heck, Intel's atom is so lame that on their own Meego platform, they can't even provide decent video drivers because the video card portion is 3rd party.

Oh no! What will happen if someone like AMD or nvidia got their hands on their video tech through their open source drivers!Reply

Future Atoms will be mostly SoC designs, while the Bobcat platforms are not. Zacate Bobcats will compete with Celeron and Pentium models anyways, not Atom. Ontario Bobcats will compete with Atoms. While Bobcat will have a per-clock advantage over Atom, it remains to be seen how Bobcat will perform when compared to Celeron and Pentium systems.

We're not just talking about a 500 Mhz clock difference here though. The Intel Z560 Atom already runs at 2.13 Ghz, although it is a single core design. The Atom D525 dual core runs at 1.8 Ghz. That is a clock difference of 600-800 Mhz compared to the Ontario Bobcats. Reply

Atom D525 is 13W TDP, 87mm2 and more expensive packaging than zakate. Get the facts dude, zakate is cheaper than Atom and as you say near core 2 speed. Wellcome the the new wold. As zakate is cheaper than Atom, Intel can not use core i whatever or something more expensive, because they will loose tons of money doing so.Reply

and to match atoms Visual performance you will have to add in a nvidia card, which means on its own the atom missess out since smart users will want to use the power of there video cards to accelerate there daily tasks. Im already using it in microsoft office, the beta of IE8 and BETA firefox.

Truth is intel does not have an image for fast video cards, and thats probably going to hurt the more in the long run then AMD's rep for making a good alternative.Reply

Can you show me concrete proof that is is cheaper for AMD specifically to make a 75mm2 chip than it is for Intel to make an 87mm2 chip? We can assume its cheaper, but we have no concrete facts to back this up. The die size difference between 75 and 87 is negligible. Reply

The i3 is a bigger more complicated chip and package (MCM). The ULV i3's are in the same power envelope (18W), but by moving to an i3 you'd be trading GPU power and (at least to Intel) a higher price for additional CPU power. So, depending on the application, it might not be an upgrade.Also, with the Ontario vs. Atom, it's again going to be about the GPU. Probably very similar CPU power with much improved GPU capabilities.Even if it's not a "home run", it's AMD leveraging their expertise and hitting Intel where they have a hole in their lineup. Reply

Sorry, but you seem to be totally missing the point. The architectural differences mean that even at 1GHz bobcat is very likely to beat the 1.6GHz atom, even in most CPU bound workloads. Atom is an incredibly poorly performing 'in order' architecture.

What you are saying is not much better than kids back in 2003 saying that "a 2.8GHz P4 Celeron MUST beat a 1.8GHz Athlon64 because its got over 1/3rd more GHz!!!"

The graphics system is also very important for the target market, a mediocre system can still feel very snappy in most likely usage scenarios provided it has a capable graphics subsystem. Now that many of the highly CPU bound media tasks (HD playback, transcoding, compression) are starting to make use of gpGPUs that will become even more important. Intel may POSSIBLY be able to get adequate 2d/3d acceleration working and integrated soon, but they are very far behind AMD here and have never marketed a CUDA/Stream/OpenCL capable chip and driver - thats a lot of catch-up work to do. Reply

Except what you are forgetting is that Bobcat is an out of order core and Atom is an inorder core. There is a lot of difference between these styles of architectures. What matters is not entirely the clock speed but also IPC. Only running a CPU at a higher frequency would be a brute force approach. Out of order processor has a much higher IPC than in order processor. Hence dont under estimate the CPU yet until you have seen Anand's promised performance numbers next week. Also however the CPU turns out, it is a real boon for people in the netbook segment to get a good graphics. People are frustrated with Intel's sucked up graphics and their over priced Atom based systems which hardly measure up to anything. It may not be something that turns the world upside down. But nevertheless it will be something that will be very welcome. We should also not forget that fusion is in their initial stages. It will get better with time.

This is one thing Intel will take a long time catching up Graphics!!!!!! We may never know. Visual experience is something which is very powerful. It captures people's imagination. At an outset iphone and another phone may look the same. But its the performance that is the clincher. If this performs this is clinch for sure.Reply

If it's based on the Evergreen architecture then why not just call it Radeon 5310 and 5250 series? Just confusing to call a Radeon GPU a 6310 and a 6250 when it's based on the Radeon 5 series. Especially considering there will be no new Radeon 6 series that will come out lower then the 6800 series.Reply

...is when I can see something like this for the Desktop. Obviously this would be awesome

Also, it becomes pretty apparent that AMD is falling behind more and more when it comes to the manufacturing process. TSMC's troubled 40nm process just doesn't cut it anymore and AMD's own process is pretty far behind as well.

Also, while I often tell people that they don't need to replace their 4 year old computer to check emails, 1/1.2GHz does sound a little low. Reply

I've been using a dual core 1.3GHz CULV setup for the past year and its been perfect.

I cant tell any day to day difference between it and my 3.4GHz quadcore box.

The need for more CPU power for the day to day tasks mentioned in the article past a long time ago.

The 1.3GHz CULV benches almost as fast as a 3GHz P4D from a few years back. Plenty fast enough.

Remember this platform is aimed at mum and dad boxes. Also I've been farming out dual core Atom ION boxes for office use the past year. Had nothing but positive feedback. Customers love them. Big step up from all those 3GHz single core P4 or AthlonXP boxes they struggled with before.

A lot of average people haven't even moved completely to HD videos yet. Current P4 boxes are actually enough for more people than you think.

A Celeron or Atom box is enough for a lot of people. You're making an assumption that a large group of buyers *want* something more powerful than an Atom or Celeron, which are the price points Bobcat is aiming at. I think it's debatable how large such a group is. Reply

I think that it will do well. sub 500 sounds fine, and i think there will be a significant group of people who will by this for there kids as there first machine. My brother go an atom job for his son and he hasent even broken out of grade school yet.

for the old and intrench.. might be a struggle but for the younger kids i think AMD will do well since they spend most of the time farming on facebook, which will help with gpgpu and the 6xxx vid card.Reply

I have a Pentium M 1.8Ghz with Radeon X1600M Laptop. I wonder if the Top Range Dual Core 1.6Ghz Bobcat with 500Mhz 6310 will beat my Laptop Performance, which i considered to be capable for 95% of my work load with an SSD. It is only lacking in playing High Def Video, but UVD 3 solve that problem easily.

How much would these thing cost? 70mm2 only sounds ridiculously cheap to make with only 480 pins on 40nm2. Reply

Relatively powerful GPU sounds not very good. If i consider 1 being first gen, 6 would be 6th gen already. Even though some of these are half gen, I would be very sad if a 5 years later Low end GPU cant outplaform my Mid Range from Gfx computer.. Reply

True freedom isn't about the actual processor. Its about the performance.

If you run windows even under a low performance setting, the system is hurt by the fact one needs to run antiviruses, firewalls, spyware and adware removal tools. It means running Windows with a pair of bobcats + the GPUs are going to have their power spent on keeping those "Security" programs up.

AMD itself can not code a decent Linux Driver to the point performance is going to be shot to hell on Linux.

I'd much rather have a laptop with an nvidia solution running a linux system as it means I get performance since decent nvidia drivers exist on linux, and one doesn't have to run any of the security programs one has to run on Linux and the performance efficiency is a lot higher on Linux.

All what fusion is going to do is increase the level of dependency people have to windows.Reply

That's got to be a joke! Have you ever noticed how MSSE can put a system into a pregnant pause every now and then? Watch the service in Task Manager, for example. On a low powered system, those pauses could be very long, and quite disruptive.Reply

AMD/ATI Linux support has actually got a whole lot better in the last year or 2.

I've got a 4870 (closed catalyst driver) in my desktop which only ever runs Ubuntu, and an x300 (open 'radeon' driver) in my laptop. They are running well w.r.t both speed and stability.

AMD are also providing specs and some dev time to the open drivers so there is now varying levels of 2D and 3D acceleration working well in the open drivers - which is more than you can say for nVidia.

I have also found that AMD vs Intel performance results are different under linux vs windows (much windows software is compiled using intels ICC and with more optimisation effort for intel processors). AMD generally perform relativity better under Linux (GCC compiler).Reply

Fusion Ontario/Zacate has the same performance of current Athlon II / Turion II Neo (same performance as regular (Athlon II).

Zacate GPU has lower clocks than of HD5400(500Mhz vs 650Mhz). That's the main difference.

Why people mention CULV when Athlon II / Turion II are there and destroy those options as a cpu/gpu combo(equal cpu perf. way way better gpu perf.)

80SP AMD GPU already surpass ION2 GPU.

ETWhat dissapointing? Look any comparison of the current 45nm Neo's, it's a slaughter for the poor Atoms, you'll see the same slaughter with Brazos but with improved battery life and the better gpu(twice the HD4250)Reply

If that thing really uses 4.7W its game over for AMD. No way should that part consume more than a watt. It should not even be there at all. Cant netbook manufacturers skip it entirely, and just go with a low power usb chip instead? What else do you need the FCH for on a netbook or a tablet?Reply

Eh, the range was 2.7-4.7W TDP, which doesn't imply average power, just max for designing the enclosure.

Also, considering 3W is typical for a DIMM of memory, and this thing is driving up multiple SATA, PCI-E, & USB ports (which remember, you have to be able to charge devices over USB), doesn't seem unreasonable that under load it would draw that much power.Reply

"Zacate takes the top two SKUs, while Ontario makes up the bottom two. The difference in TDP is entirely based on the clock speed of the CPU and GPU. And here is my concern. While a pair of Bobcats running at 1.6GHz are just awesome, drop the clock to 1.0GHz and I start getting concerned about performance. AMD didn’t let us test the C-50 but I’m curious to see what the margin of victory will be over Atom at that speed."

If you believe it is 100% on clock speed, we have a ton of leakage.Reply

These are still not really hybrid processors. They've taken a GPU and a CPU (well, two of 'em) and stuck them on the same die. There's no sharing of resources between the two.

A true hybrid chip would, in my opinion, share most of the hardware between the CPU and GPU. They'd share execution resources. For example, in these AMD chips, the CPU's SIMD instructions can't take advantage of the GPU's SIMD blocks, from what I'm seeing (forgive me if I'm misreading this all).Reply

This hardware is amazing, and has many possible uses. The most obvious is in netbooks and ultraportables: It will simply destroy the competition. AMD is right, what this market segment needs right now is more gpu power, not cpu. If their use case involved higher cpu usage, they wouldn't get a netbook or ultraportable anyway.

This will also enable great tablets-ipad clones. Ideally a zacate tablet running Linux (for me).

I bought an Acer Aspire One more than 2 years ago, and i am frustrated by Intel policies. The GMA they paired original Atom netbooks with was garbage, consuming 5 times the power Atom consumed... And its performance sucks. Current Atoms still suck, although with more battery power, because Intel hates Atom since it has lower margins. They didn't really expect this kind of success, they didn't want to believe for most people cpu power is enough... They stopped advancing Atom so it is no wonder Netbook sales growth has reached negative numbers... But this tactic will become a boomerang for them...

the total power draw for a netbook based on the brazos platform amd e-series will be 22-24 watts. the cpu performance for a amd e series will be equal to a core i5 520m.i got proof look at the other amd slideshows and videos they have done they have even shown avp running on 720p medium setting bit choppy thoughReply

Good article. I currently own a Intel SU4100 system (Gateway ec1430u). I am very interested in zacate platform vs. the intel SU processor platform. There are very few SU4100 + GPU platforms (read MAC Book Air and Zotac IONITX-O-E), so I hope your tests will include these systems as competitors.

What is more interesting (to me) is AMD’s Universal Media Interface (UMI) and the Hudson FCH. A necessary upgrade for every ultra portable is a SSD. I hope we will see the SB800 chipset SATA6 performance. Also why isn't there any concern about the memory (CPU, GPU) bottleneck.

Staying tuned for the article next week and I hope to see benchmarks of the sata controller, especially SSD benchmarks, TRIM support, and overall SB800 throughput performance (USB, ethernet, etc).Reply

Yeah, I have a gateway 1803 with a su3500 (core 2 solo 1.4) and even with only one core, it is fairly fast, much faster than an Atom with only a 5.5 watt TDP. I am not sure what the TDP of the graphics on the 945 is. The 945 graphics are certainly nothing real impressive, but they will do 720p youtube and accelerated ie9 beta is pretty fast. I see the Su line as the best competitor for the bobcat, and would like to see them compared.Reply

Whether you know anyone who wants an iPad is irrelevant. Personal anecdotal observations are frankly irrelevant.

It is a statistical fact that *since* the iPad went on sale, netbook sales have been declining harder. Acer in particular is suffering as its netbook sales over the last few months have been down BIG-TIME, and Acer is one of the big netbook OEMs.

Millions of iPads have already been sold, and Apple continues to sell them at a very high rate.

Yes Atom's lack of performance in some areas might have contributed. However it is ludicrous to completely deny the impact the iPad is having on netbook sales. Reply

Funny you mention that, as AMD is in a similar situation. Bobcat is too power-hungry to compete with ARM, but it doesn't have enough performance to direct compete with Celerons, Pentiums, and i3s. Bobcat will have more CPU performance than Atom it seems, but to what end?

AMD has Intel on one side and Apple on the other side. As I already said, netbooks are facing direct competition from the iPad. This is competition that BOTH Intel and AMD have to deal with. For laptops, i3 and i5 processors still reign supreme in terms of CPU performance, heat, and power efficiency. Sandy Bridge laptops will significantly improve GPU performance.

Intel is trying to put most of its Atom focus to TVs, HTPCs, tablets, and phones. Of course they face competition from ARM and Apple.

Atom may be too power-hungry at the moment, but future Atoms will further decrease the TDP to far below Bobcat levels. Reply

Lots of comments here about this Vs Atom, but I think people are entirely missing the point about ultra-low power devices.

First of all, what about ARM? The AMD/Intel rivalry is interesting if people still think that small devices will run Windows 7 Professional, or even OS X, but the reality is that OSes are changing. Android and most obviously iOS work differently, and I suspect that even OS X is moving much more towards GPGPU capabilities that make the CPU almost secondary.

RISC and APU designs will be far more important in the next 5 years than they were in tghe last 15 years, and because of this, Intel probably has the biggest hill to climb. AMD understood this in 2006, which is why they bought ATI.Reply